


Normal people would settle for a card and a cake

by SuperiorDimwit



Category: Ao no Exorcist | Blue Exorcist, Supernatural
Genre: Birthday Special, Humour, season 5
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 08:19:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9170470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperiorDimwit/pseuds/SuperiorDimwit
Summary: It's Fujimoto Shiro's birthday – his 20th birthday, to be precise. Normal people would settle for a card and a cake to congratulate him. Samael decides to give him the Apocalypse. (Birthday special side story to The End of the Beginning. Happy birthday, Shiro!)





	1. Long time no see - wish it were longer

**Author's Note:**

> This is a short crossover that was supposed to be posted on TEotB-Shiro's birthday 2015, to match him turning 20 in that fic. 8'D And I still haven't finished it! But what the hell, the first chapter is done and there will only be six of them, so here you go. I'll finish the other ones as time allows.
> 
> Remember how Shiro, in chapter 9 of Between the End and the Beginning, mentioned he's a fan of Dean Winchester? Well. This story is meant to be... We can call it an alternative take on Shiro's 20th birthday. Something that could have happened but didn't: or happened in a parallel timeline. (It's up to you to interpret it however you like as long as it makes sense to you. ^v^)
> 
> This takes place during the last three-four episodes of Supernatural season 5. You know, when they're chasing Horsemen rings to trap Satan and stop the Apocalypse. We'll be starting off with a familiar scene, to freshen up memory and give you an idea of where in the timeline we are, and then I'll go from there. Heads-up though: I make references to things that have happened recently to Sam and Dean in season 5, so the more you remember of it the more will you pick up on these references.

It was a day like any other day. Not particularly sunny and not particularly cloudy but that middle-ground limbo April was best known for; not quite warm enough to lose the jacket but not cold enough to wear it closed either. Life went on as life usually does, framed in all the minute detail that doesn't really matter until it's no longer there: the paint that flakes off the door little by little every time it closes, that one uneven tile in the driveway paving, the gentle background hum of electricity from lamps and household appliances.

It was a day like any other day. Then again, even those days held a certain value when the world was about to end. If days were a sellable item and you happened to have a few to spare, one could have made billions.

There so happened to be a man who could sell days – and a great many other things, too – and, as luck would have it, he was in the market to trade.

* * *

The catch, of course, being to find this man. In Crowley's experience he was always where he wanted to be, and always where nobody else wanted him to be.

One place where he was most definitely not was in Bobby Singer's kitchen – which was more of a relief than a surprise.

Crowley took the opportunity to glance around the place, now that he was there and all. It was quite a nice house, considering it sat in the middle of a car dump. It smelled of dust – quite a bit of it – and underneath that the smell of, ah, more dust, with a hint of human and metal and herbs. It was a rustique building, like a farmer's residence, and with a self-reliance about it that kept it firmly anchored to the ground. A shame, really. The house could have been so much more, he knew, when his eyes landed on the library beyond the kitchen. There was a regal touch to it, grained into the deep red wallpapers, dark wooden panelling, and the paintings in their gilded frames: a wish to be more than a farm house in the outback of society.

All ruined by this junk hoarder.

"Yea, I followed up." Ah, and the man himself: Bobby Singer, on the phone out in his library. Would be rude to interrupt. "Nasty omens, but none of it's Death with a capital D." Crowley made use of the pause to tuck his hands into his pockets and allow himself a mental pat in the back: he had arrived with perfect timing. "Well, just give me a ring if it turns into anything. And, Rufus... You watch your ass out there."

Crowley barely waited till the phone had been clicked off.

"Chin up. Cavalry's arrived."

He almost smiled. A hunter's reflexes on a man bound to a wheelchair he could barely manoeuvre: what a pitiful thing to behold.

Singer swivelled around fast enough, and Crowley found himself at the unpleasant end of a revolver. He could only hope this man was better than the moose and his handler. He had heard a good deal of Bobby Singer: the famed spider in the web. A man like him could be talked to, he hoped – reasoned with, that was the best possible scenario, but few hunters possessed the required faculties for that.

Oh well. People who can't be reasoned with can still be persuaded, and that was something of a specialty of Crowley's kind.

"Charming. That won't work on me. Name's Crowley. Maybe you've...?" he trailed off.

" _You're_ Crowley?" Oh Singer had heard of him. He just didn't seem very impressed by what he saw.

"In the flesh – of a moderately successful literary agent out of New York."

It was the civil thing to do, introducing oneself. Singer decided the best way of doing that was to put a bullet in Crowley's chest.

"Aah!" Messy. And painful. "I see you have heard of me." Reasoned with? Unlikely. Persuaded? Possible. "I liked this suit."

"What are you doing here?"

"Looking out for Crowley", he responded with regained cool.

"Meaning...?"

Not one to mince words, either. Crowley narrowed his eyes. Had this been a matter of physical combat he would have been walking out the door on a red carpet of Bobby Singer's entrails. That was the entirely wrong tactic, though – thinking of this as combat. Enter the talk with the aim to win and Singer would dig his heels in and get them nowhere. Don't push, that was the trick: don't counter resistance with resistance. Go along with the momentum. Yield.

Speak the man's language, and he would listen.

"The boys are on to ring number three, but we still need number four. I'm here to help."

"You know where Death is?"

Yes. Singer listened. Hook, line, and sinker, he listened to every word because desperate times turn choosers into beggars. Crowley held his tongue a moment longer to let the bait sink further, allowing the hunter time to embrace the idea that there was hope to be had.

"No", he replied with amicable ease. "Haven't the foggiest."

Singer had his shotgun cocked and aimed before the words were even out of his mouth.

"Well then get the hell off my property before I blast you so full of rock salt you crap margaritas."

Well well. Quite the colourful inventory of words, once you coaxed him into actually speaking. If the fate of the world hadn't hinged on this man's cooperation, Crowley might have goaded him on to see what would come next.

"That's a mite unfriendly", he pointed out, hand raised. "Seeing as I could be getting you Death's location in about the time it'd take you to reload.

"You're just gonna chat some demons up and hope they don't recognize you?"

"God, no; that could get me killed. But there is this little spell that I know."

"That so…?"

Singer wasn't sold yet – not by a long shot. The question wasn't even a question, only a medium to carry the dripping sarcasm in his voice.

"Results are 100% guaranteed", Crowley continued smoothly, taking care to keep eye contact and not glance down at the gun barrel pointed at his person.

"Okay. Then why are you snake-oiling me?"

…what an awful customer.

"Well, it's a little bit... embarrassing." By now he was drawing it out for annoyance only, since Singer so pointedly refused to play along. "There's this... technicality."

"Uh-huh."

" _Your blatant disregard for communication beyond two-syllable cues for me to get to the point, for one thing._ " But saying that would not help business. "I need a little something to get the magic going."

"And what's that?"

Three syllables. Progress.

"You make a wish. I can give you anything you want, mate – up to and including Death's coordinates. All I need is..."  
_  
Ding_. The penny dropped at last.

"My soul", the old hunter finished in level tones.

"I've done more with less", he elaborated easily, trailing off on a minor detour to diminish the weight of the matter. "Let's just say when they're getting their Grammys they shouldn't all be thanking God." He paused, measuring how far the hook had been swallowed and if the time was right to reel in. "It's worth it, Bobby." Nudge his thoughts in the right direction, and then: "Think."

It was so easy. Singer's mind did as it was told, scampering off to all the reasons this deal was worth it. All the lives it would save – most notably the lives of the Winchester boys. Many sacrifices had been made for them. Good people, as Moose had so heatedly informed him. All to see Lucifer safely muzzled in his cage. With so little time one more sacrifice was nothing to debate: not if it got them what they had fought so hard and lost so many for. Singer knew that; Crowley could see the conclusion forming behind his eyes long before it came out of his mouth.

"Okay." _Yes_. A reasonable man, just as he had thou– "Here's my counter."

A reasonable amount of rock salt embedded itself with searing precision in Crowley's body.

"OW!" He teleported into the library, behind the _lunatic_ with the shotgun. "Bloody hell! Feisty…!"

The lunatic who calmly wheeled himself around and held him at gunpoint again.

"Get out."

"I'll give it right back", he assured. Absolute bollocks, but Singer didn't need to know that. After ruining his suit _twice_ since his tailor had gotten himself eaten, there was _nothing_ Bobby Singer was good for other than obediently saying bloody _yes_ to this deal.

"You think I'm a natural-born idjit?"

"Quite the contrary." Smart people were natural-born pains in the arse. Time to try a different approach – a more straightforward one. Not so many polished words, not so many well-rehearsed phrases. "Look, you're right to be suspicious. But I'm your ally. Enemy of my enemy and all that. I need the devil back in his stock. In fact, my delicate arse depends on it." Crowley didn't need to act sincere when he said that. Every single word was excruciatingly true. "I promise you: temporary loan. I'll give it. Right. Back."

* * *

Crowley cast a sceptical eye about the damp basement Singer had put at his disposal. You'd think the hunter had moved part of the dump indoors, with how the air was saturated with the smell of metal, oil, and rubber. He didn't do much more than stand, other than staring vacantly at the summoning symbols he had drawn out on the floor. In a perfect world he would not have to do this. In a perfect world he wouldn't have to do anything at all, except occasionally wag his fingers to call on vast hordes of fearful servants. A brief, indulgent smile crept up on his lips. He savoured it as long as he could, knowing it wouldn't last long once he got started on this… Ah yes, there it was: every trace of smile and joy gone. Samael had that effect on people.

Samael was also, sadly, his only hope of pulling this off.

The King of Time was a man after his own heart, and that was not the kind of man Crowley wished to have dealings with. Normally he didn't have to, either. He didn't have the power to call beings from other dimensions of existence – once again, _normally_. Since Singer so kindly had agreed to wish for it, the spell to invoke the King of Time could be worked.

…he just had to take a deep breath before beginning his recital.

Crowley didn't know the meaning of the words he spoke. He only knew they were coarse against his throat, did things to the air he breathed that made it drag over his tongue like velcro hooks. His ribcage creaked, his blood gasped and shuddered; the words drained him, made his head spin. It's no small feat, to rip a thing from one dimension to another.

And yet it's thrilling. Thrilling like obscene intoxication and wild dancing; the air thickens, the lamplight flickers, the pebbles on the unswept floor quake and clatter like dead men's teeth.

Towards the end the spell almost chants itself. The basement writhes in birthing pain. Crowley's head is fluttering like the candle flames, the air is a living thing about to die, and _then it comes_. A soundless rush, a world torn open, a spell completed that strikes Crowley's ears like pressure at an altitude drop. He staggers. The world is mute; all he hears is the ringing inside his head, the void left by the words.

"Oh did you _have_ to?"

It's not the smell of blood and sulphur that fills the basement: it is the sharp, pungent smell of nail polish.

"I was almost done!" Samael – Second King of Gehenna, Lord of Time and Space, God of A Thousand Names – frantically waved a splayed set of finely manicured claws at his face. Electric blue, manicured claws. "Do you have any idea how much precision it takes to get an even layer?!"

Crowley did, for reasons best left alone, know how hard it was to get an even layer of nail polish. His hearing had returned fully, too. Sadly.

The innocent of mind might have taken Samael's purple minidress for a long pyjamas shirt. They would have a harder time explaining away the knee high leather boots and vast expanses of green eye shadow, but might eventually have concluded it was some sort of Halloween getup. Add to that the long, blue wig and the verdict would most certainly veer towards some manner of masquerade costume.

Crowley was not exactly innocent of mind, nor did he have any illusions about Samael's innocence. By the time he had come to the conclusion that he would rather not know what kind of activity the King of Time had been dressing up for, it was too late.

"Fergus!" The nail polish vial was gone as if it had never existed. Samael beamed like a strobe light: in a variety of eye-catching colours, and painfully bright. "I didn't recognise you – you look so handsome!" He strode out of the summoning circle with his arms thrown wide and enveloped Crowley in a bony embrace. "How are you? Utterly miserable and desperate, as always?"

"What, you mean I'm miserable every time we meet?" What a ludicrous idea. "Well I can only say the opposite of you! Always enjoying yourself to the fullest!" Crowley's own state of utter misery usually factored into that. But shared misery is half misery, as some wise soul once said. So Crowley smiled and patted him in the back, and when the embrace broke he made sure to impart Samael's fair share: "It's good some things stay the same – brings a semblance of stability to this mess. Lets me sleep at night."

Samael might give the impression he was as consistent as a lottery spinner, but that was mere impression. There was always a reason, always a purpose, in everything he did. Why he avoided sleep was a secret shrouded in mystery, but one had to assume he did so for very good reasons.

The reaction was infinitesimal, but it was there: and it was immensely pleasing.

"Sleep? In this place?" Samael was too much of a gentleman to crinkle his nose. It was rather the room that crinkled around him, as if squirming in embarrassment at the scrutiny. "Dear dear, and I thought your suit was in bad condition. Prince turned pauper – indeed, how the mighty have fallen." His tone changed, then. "Was that why?"

"Why what?"

"You know what! You didn't come to my inaugural party when I joined the exorcist order!" Samael crossed his arms and looked accusing the way only Samael could: a curious mix of a petulant child and a mother catching said child nicking snacks out of the pantry.

"I didn't?" Crowley repeated with faux surprise. "My, how in the world could I have missed something like that? Oh right: I was stuck in North Carolina, arse-deep in a river, covered in mud and freezing my bollocks off dredging up gold for some half-wit barber's son from Tennessee who _somehow_ caught wind of how to summon and bind demons."

The implication bounced off Samael's ego like an arrow striking a shield.

"Don't beat yourself up, old fellow. Sometimes things are simply beyond our control." Samael patted him reassuringly on the shoulder, the slight of not showing up magnanimously forgiven and forgotten. "You can still come to my 200th anniversary party in a few years."

Crowley doubted he would be able to attend that party, for reasons that would most likely be beyond his control.

"Gotta make sure the world's still here in a few years: which is why I called you, incidentally. We need to find Death."

"That so?" The smile Samael wore was so lathered in artificial sweetness it could well have come out of a candy wrapper. "I hear it's more common that Death finds you – but considering your options I completely understand."

Crowley's mind was briefly invaded by a hundred stupid viral jokes about Soviet Russia. He welcomed the interruption, actually: the option was to have his mind picture the many diverse ways Lucifer's torturers would invent to separate his muscles from his bones fibre by fibre. For eternity.

"Well luckily the world doesn't operate on internet meme logic", he picked up with his most amicable smile. "Thing is, this circus is running on a very tight schedule, and I need everything set and done before the final act goes on. You know about the cage. You know what it takes to unlock it. We've got the rings from War and Famine and the merry cowboys are on their way to collect Pestilence's. All we need", his hand gestured an introductory motion, "is Death."

"Ah, ah: all _you_ need, is Death", he pointed out in a patronising voice that would have made Crowley grind his teeth if he hadn't already been pressing them together so tightly. "I have my own things to attend to. Charming as this universe of yours may be, it is not mine."

Samael had a way of doing that, yes. Of reminding you that he was Other. Nerve grating eccentricities aside, he was a being above and beyond whatever rules petty demons had to play and die by. There were stories told about Samael in Hell like the stories humans told of werewolves and ghouls: part fact and part fantasy, and no one to debunk what was what.

Information is valuable – very valuable. Crowley had spent more time than he would admit trying to sift the grains of truth out of those stories. Some of it was useful, some was not. Some of it had tipped scales that won him benefits, like this spell; some of it contained information that would be very… unstrategic to disclose, from a survival point of view.

There were some fantastic stories in that collection, yes. Some of them would go as far as claim that Samael had forged the keys to Lucifer's cage.

It probably wasn't true. The creator of those keys was unknown, and that opened up the field for speculation and the wild rumours that inevitably accompanied it. Those rings took the essence of abstract things and gave them shape, sentience, will: no demon could do that. The Essence of things was a realm beyond magic, as old as the world itself. To bend that Essence, to undo the work of God and open that cage: no demon could do that.

It probably wasn't true. Yet somewhere, deep down, Crowley believed it. Standing before Samael, he believed it. In his gangly shadow rumours came alive and became more than fanciful stories, became things that could easily coil around the essence of the universe and shape it at will; coil around bindings placed by God Almighty and pry them open. Because Samael was Other, and carving doors between worlds was his specialty.

Crowley licked his lips and tried to make it seem like he wasn't nervous so much as he was preparing himself to give Samael a lecture. He shoved his hands into his pockets and, as subtly as he could, positioned his feet wider apart.

"Look, Johann – or whatever you fancy calling yourself these days – you know as well as I do that the Apocalypse isn't gonna care where you draw the line between your universe and mine; it's going to domino its merry way across every dimension there is, and it's a bloody bad deal for anyone who likes to breathe the fresh air of mother earth, or breathe at all. And while the latter might not be a risk for someone as high up as you, we both know you enjoy this galactical lump of dirt far too much to let a vengeful Devil bully you off the playground." He paused, letting his words hang in the dank air before he lowered his voice and continued: "You like Earth just as much as I do, and our only chance to keep it in one piece is to get this bunch of gun-toting gorillas a rendes-vouz with Death."

"Not saying I'm not interested in seeing Satan back in his cage, Fergus. I have every reason to want him locked up." Samael's eyes roamed the basement room as he spoke, taking inventory of the items stored in there with an interest that was idle and sharp at once. When they at long last landed on Crowley, he knew what that gaze reminded him of: snakes. You could never tell if they were sleeping or if they were eyeing you for lunch. "But what makes you think I would know where Death is?"

Fairy tales, mostly. Rumours and gossip. Crowley shuffled his weight to one leg for a more comfortable stance. Not that there seemed to be one.

"Well, you know: part hearsay, part having an actual functioning brain – a not too common privilege these days." He rocked on his heels. Since when did he rock on his heels? Crowley ceased, reasserting his grasp on himself and on his voice. "You're the King of Time and you control space. Death flits back and forth across dimensions, back and forth in split seconds; back and forth, back and forth, gotta be literally in all places at all times. That does make me inclined to believe what I hear when little birds whisper that you and Death go… _far_ back." He tipped his head forward, looking up at Samael for… what? Some trace of a hint to give away that his assumptions were correct?

Samael kept him waiting, wearing that pleasant fake smile of his. It annoyed him to be summoned, Crowley knew that. The idea that somebody could call on him like a common dog didn't appeal to his ego, and if he against all odds were summoned he would make sure everything else was on his terms: the talk, the pace, the deal, everything. He would reply when he felt like it.

"That we do", he admitted. "But tell me, what good would it do to lead the Winchesters to Death? It's not like they could overpower it – or even touch it."

"You'd be surprised what a functioning brain can accomplish. We've got that covered with this little gal."

Death's sickle: Crowley pulled it out of his suit jacket. A treasure like that was something you came by once in a lifetime, if you were lucky. He had been very lucky, one rainy day in 18th century Canterbury. Very lucky indeed; there was a covetous gleam in Samael's eyes when they wandered over the curve of the blade. It was dark and matted, an aged thing – how old, exactly, Crowley couldn't even begin to guess.

"Now that's something I haven't seen in an age! Where did you get _that_?"

"King of the Crossroads – has its perks. And stop drooling, would you? Gentlemen didn't drool last time I checked."

"You slept through most of the 19th century", Samael helpfully pointed out.

"There were gentlemen in the 18th century, too. And just so we're clear, this darling's not going into your collection; this, is going into Death's back", he clarified, slipping the sickle back into the relative safety of his suit.

Demons are an egotistical breed. They may have known each other since they were in the proverbial diapers but when personal gain is involved, old friendship doesn't mean jack squat. Crowley was well aware of that, as was Samael – if Death was of the same opinion Crowley didn't know, nor did he care.

"So, I've laid down my terms: what about yours? What's the price of Death's coordinates?"

Honestly, he didn't want to know. Normally a deal would cost a soul, but there was nothing normal about this deal or its negotiators. Crowley had no soul to sell – well, frankly, he had nothing he could give up that would balance out the favour he was asking of Samael. That put him in the worst possible situation for negotiating: Samael could demand _anything_. Which he very well might, seeing as he was a man after Crowley's own heart.

Samael made a show of taking his time: stroking his beard, tapping a finger to his lips, staring off into space – giving Crowley ample room to imagine himself all the way to a heart attack.

"I know!" He snapped his fingers in delight as the answer came to him. "Bring along my trainee!"

Behind a vacant stare, Crowley decided that he had probably heard wrong, that Samael was joking, and the real response would come any minute.

It didn't. Partly because Samael had vanished and partly because Samael was a thrice-damned arse that made plans without anyone's knowledge and enacted them without anyone's consent.

Crowley's enthusiasm reached previously uncharted levels when Samael, this time in white suit and cape, returned with the intended "trainee": a scrawny little bookworm thing, with the slightly off features of a boy who has not fully grown into his adult self yet. As Crowley watched he wobbled unsteadily, clutching his stomach with one hand and Samael's cape with the other.

"Oh joy. Stuart Little joins the team."

The squirt in question gave a start. There was a faint ringing of magic in the air, a ripple of something Samael had done in the passing, as if working magic was something that could be done just like that. But although the boy had magically understood what Crowley had said, he hadn't understood what he meant – that much was evident from his confused stare.

"He's from the seventies", Samael explained, the way you would explain that your pet dog looks a little funny because its mother and father were siblings: the poor thing can't help it. "From my exorcist school. Shirou Fujimoto; Crowley. Crowley; Shirou Fujimoto", he introduced them with a chipper joy that made Crowley want to pull his beard out hair by hair.

" _Explains the glasses._ " He was more convinced than ever that behind that pokerface, Samael was laughing like a bloody seagull: and more determined than ever not to let his own mood shine through. "Splendid. I'm sure he'll prove to be an integral asset in preventing the Apocalypse", he said with utmost sincerity, "almost as integral as knowing Death's coordinates."

Samael simply smiled, snapped his fingers, and handed him a paper slip with coordinates.

"Chicago. It's a shame, really", he added. "They have such good pizza in Chicago: you should try it before it's too late." And then, the hallmark one-eighty: "Well then! If you'd excuse me, I have nails to paint. Be good and have fun!"

Samael blew Crowley a kiss, then spun his cape like he was the goddamn Phantom of the Opera; the lights in the basement flickered unsteadily, and he was gone with an indistinct pop and a cloud of pink smoke.

Silence laid itself to rest over the cellar like a thick, age-honed layer of dust. Crowley stared blankly at the boy, trying to the best of his ability to second-guess just what the hell Samael had tricked him into.

"What're you lookin' at?" The kid's grunt carried a tone and a slurring of the words that clashed jarringly with Crowley's image of an East Asian bookworm.

"I'm wondering the same thing."

* * *

"Good news!" Crowley announced, striding into Singer's library with the confidence of a man who not only owns the place, but who owns everything within a ten mile radius of it.

Stuart Little trailed after him – aloof, almost, the way he threw glances left and right at the occult books and paraphernalia Singer had stacked on virtually every vacant surface in the room.

"We have Death on a silver platter." Crowley presented Singer the paper between index finger and middle finger.

Singer didn't take it. His hand was on the shotgun in his lap, and his eyes were on the new addition to the team.

"Who the hell's that?"

Ah, trust Singer to waste no words before cutting to the chase. As a matter of fact, Crowley would have very much liked to know the same thing. He would very much like to know what the hell Samael's game was, but nobody was going to indulge that wish of his. It might have grated on his nerves a little.

A little.

"Well, you know – all deals don't come with the 'have it your way' option. Sometimes you have to order the whole meal when you only want the burger", he explained with all the sarcasm he could fit in under that thin layer of joviality. "So: Death's coordinates", he placed the paper in Singer's lap, whereupon he indicated the boy next to him, "and the side salad: Shirou Fujimoto."

The look on Singer's face said he couldn't make heads or tails of this; it was somewhat consolatory.

"He's extra crispy", Crowley added with a smile.

Singer's next look had had enough of demon snark. He spoke to Shirou instead, ordering him to take a swig out of the bottle he was being offered. Holy water, if Crowley knew the old hunter right. Granted, he had known him for about five minutes and a kiss, but he had a good grasp on what kind of man Bobby Singer was.

Shirou passed the test without a word, handing the flask back to Singer and unceremoniously wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Mind telling me what's going on, kid?"

"I'm supposed to help you get Death's ring."

Another who didn't mince words. Splendid. These two would get along beautifully.

"You?" Singer had set the same diagnosis as Crowley: scrawny bookworm kid. "How?"

"Hell if I know", he returned with an untroubled shrug. "Usually I just improvise."

"What the hell is this, Crowley?" Singer snarled. As if this farce was _his_ idea.

"An exorcist." That summed up just about everything he knew of Shirou Fujimoto. "From the seventies", he added with a helpful smile.

"You need some rock salt to help you cough up that explanation?"

"I have a better idea: save the rock salt for your enemies and start briefing your allies." He tapped the face of his none too cheap gold wristwatch. "Clock's ticking."

Singer looked like he wouldn't mind wasting that extra round of rock salt. Crowley deliberated whether he should push him just a little bit more or if it was better to resort to straightforward speech again when, casually, Stuart decided to speak up.

"About that: will somebody tell me what year it is? And who the fuck is Stuart Little?"

"Stuart Little?" Singer's whole face scrunched up with confusion.

"The English dude called me that." The boy tossed his head in his direction.

Crowley, in turn, exploded. Almost.

"I'm _Scottish_ ", he clarified in something similar to a conversational tone.

"Really? Sammy said you were English."

" _I bet he bloody did_ ", he thought, recalling all too vividly how he had raised his voice during his terse chat with the Winchesters under the street lights. He never raised his voice. Not since Samael had taken to doing mock imitations as soon as his accent came through.

But this boy had never met the homicidal Winchester Moose. He couldn't possibly have told the kid about his–

And then it dawned on him, with majestic disbelief, which "Sammy" little Stuart had been talking about.

"How do you know Sam?" Singer asked, but Crowley interjected before Shirou could reply:

"It's not that Sammy. And ladies? How about 'less talk, more action', hm?"

"Yea that would be nice", Singer snorted and shot him a pointed look. He did put his hands to the wheels, however. "To answer your question this is some forty years into the future for you", he informed their side salad as he wheeled back to his cluttered desk. "God knows what it is you're supposed to do here but if you're part of the deal that'll get us Death we'd better get you up to date. Get over here, Shirow."

"It's Shirou."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We never did get to know exactly how Crowley got a hold of Death's location, other than that it involved a spell of some kind. =P So I'm taking liberties with it. Also, Samael's costume is more innocent than Crowley gives it credit for: he's cosplaying Hibiki Non from Majokko Megu-chan.
> 
> You don't call Scottish people English for the same reason you don't call Canadian people Americans, or Irish people British. On that note, I hadn't noticed before how much more prominent Crowley's accent becomes when he's upset enough to raise his voice. He sounds rather comical. I could imagine him being aware of that and speaking in a lower voice just to sound more threatening and less like a Monty Python sketch. (It's either that or making tragicomic jokes about how everyone's voice pitch keeps dropping throughout the series until only elephants can hear them.)
> 
>  **!** Crowley's opinions about hunters in wheelchairs are his own, not the author's. Crowley is a demon and a dickbag.


	2. Priorities may differ

Crowley loved menial tasks. They were meditative in their monotony, and the pedestrian nature of them helped put things in perspective – problems like the Apocalypse seemed so infinitely much bigger when compared to the issue of having enough potatoes to feed three hunters and an anachronistic exorcist.

Word from the Winchesters was they were heading back to base, and Stuart had been put in charge of preparing food. Most people don't like it when somebody hovers at their shoulder while they work; you'd think they would be even less enthusiastic about it when it's a demon doing the hovering, but Stuart seemed oddly untroubled by his presence.

It wasn't like Crowley wasn't _trying_. Stuart was just–

"Quite perky – considering the world's about to end. Though to be fair, being around Samael makes all other alternatives seem appealing. So – enjoying the 21st century so far?"

"Dunno." But smiling he was. "It doesn't look that much different from the 70's."

"Some like living in the past." Like a certain hunter who held a keen dislike both for the supernatural and for home design. "So, if the mindblowing technology of the future isn't the cause of your delight", Crowley commented as Stuart threw quizzical glances at Singer's antiquated microwave oven, "what is?"

Stuart snorted, and the smile grew into a wide grin.

"I'm gonna go on a job with Sam and Dean Winchester", he beamed.

"That's wonderful. I think you may have 'delight' confused with 'despair', but otherwise wonderful. True kamikaze spirit."

The humour wasn't lost on Stuart, although the more serious implication seemed to be. The boy laughed heartily, propping his elbows on the edge of the sink and slouching his weight on them.

"Sam and Dean are legendary where I come from", he smiled, eventually straightening up to carry on with his potatoes. "To meet them is an honour: to work with them is… If I didn't know better I'd think Sammy was tampering with my dreams again."

Crowley expertly suppressed the shudder that curled in his shoulders. Dream weaving was the Swiss army knife of torture. It turned the mind into a dungeon offering every tool imagination could conjure: a portable pocket version of Hell. If given a second chance to sell his soul, Crowley knew what he would have sold it for.

"If only", he mused in response. It was an absentminded after-thought, just the kind of tone and words that would kindle wary thoughts.

"You gonna say something, just say it." …Stuart didn't sound the least bit suspicious. Or curious. He sounded like he knew exactly what Crowley was going to say before he ever said it. "Come on." Stuart paused the potato peeling to shoot him a brief, unimpressed glance. "Why else would you try and bait me into asking?"

So, the boy knew his way around demons. Of course he did. Stuart's experiences with Samael's dream weaving seemed to have very little in common with his own, however, and Crowley was determined to find out why.

"I shouldn't need to say it, though", he drawled, inspecting the label of a whiskey bottle with a superior lack of interest for anything that was being said. "You're a smart guy." The little rat thought he was: no reason not to bolster that idea. "He might not be tampering with your dreams but he _is_ tampering with your waking life – I'm sure you know that."

"Ye-up", Stuart agreed readily.

"Which means, you're not here to pick-pocket jewellery from the Reaper." Crowley refused to give up his drawl. Or his superiority. But he might give up Bobby Singer's whiskey bottle for the greater good of not-so-figuratively deflating Stuart's big head. "You're here because he wants you here: and if you know him as well as you think you do, you had better figure out what it is he wants with you before he gets it."

"Okay, for one, that super low whisper thing you do is ridiculous. Seriously. And two, I _know_ he has ulterior motives: everyone who has ever known Sammy knows he has ulterior motives."

"Correction: everyone who ever thought they knew Samael is trapped, dead, or wishing they were dead." Crowley's voice was sharp and cold; urgent, hoping to jump-start the same urgency in Stuart and bypass his reasoning. "You can join that merry parade if you want, but if you'd rather get out of this alive you had better listen well. I can help you–"

"Because you _obviously_ have my best interests at heart", he cut off. "Like all demons."

"Learnt that the hard way, did you?" The potato peeling made a brief but telling stop. A wry smile curled Crowley's lips. Been there, done that. "His games have started getting rough, have they? People getting hurt, people getting ruined – people getting killed… My advice is you pick your poison while you still can. Me or Samael? Whoever you believe will fuck you over gentlest."

If you want to know a man's true face, put him through the wringer. Crowley had seen them all in Hell, every stage a breaking mind passes through on its way to disintegration. The paths are many, the end station is the same. Samael had begun tightening the screws on Stuart, and it showed. When adding pressure the cracks were there, and Crowley could tell what kind of man this was. Stuart wouldn't break so much as he would shatter: a mass of gleaming edges flashed in his eyes when the boy glared at him. Edges that cut inwards as well as out, waiting patiently for a moment to retaliate – ferociously.

"If you pick Samael over me I'll consider myself flattered", Crowley added cordially.

Stuart, true to the diagnosis, didn't pick anything. He was as cooperative as a limping mule and ignored anything Crowley said for the next fifteen minutes, until the front door creaked open: then he froze everything he had been doing.

"Is that them?" he said tightly.

"So I would assume: come, come." Hearing the new arrivals go to meet Singer in the library, he herded the boy out of the kitchen and into the now empty hall. "And keep your voice down."

"What? What are we doing?" As confused as he was, he still followed suit and whispered.

"Learning the lay of the land." Crowley halted him in the far corner of the corridor, where they couldn't be seen from the library but were well within earshot.

More than just the Winchesters, their aloof bird of paradise was there – but out of angel powers. Interesting. The Pestilence operation had been a success, it seemed. Good, good. Only one more ring to go, then.

"We would learn the exact same things if we were in there with them", Stuart pointed out bluntly.

"Smart guy indeed. Now hush: I can't hear."

Something was bothering the Moose. Something Pestilence had said before he vanished: that it was too late. Crowley's eyes narrowed, thoughts darting. Too late, hm? Too late because something was going to happen with or without Pestilence at the wheel… Too late because something was already in motion…

"Aren't we supposed to help them stop the Apocalypse?" Stuart was getting impatient: the wiggling of his cigarette was like a metronome hooked up to his nervous system. Crowley remembered with perfect clarity why he hated kids.

"In the best of worlds: yes", he replied with a smile, although only the blind, deaf and drunk would take it for an earnest one. "Your point?"

"Then why are we whispering in the hallway?!"

Wasn't that obvious?

"Timing, mate. If you're going to make an entrance, the right moment is everything."

Stuart stared at him. Like a dumb fish, one with eyebrows stuck so high on its forehead they threatened to vanish under the messy bangs. Then he put a hand over his mouth and stifled a cough. Ah, correction: stifled a laugh.

"Oh god I see how you and Sammy got along."

"That's one way of putting it."

Samael would have approved of the euphemism, surely.

"Chicago's about to be wiped off the map", he heard Singer say. "Storm of the millennium. Sets off a daisy chain of natural disasters. Three million people are gonna die."

"I don't understand your definition of good news."

" _Of course you don't._ " There was a fundamental reason why demons were more successful than angels in dealing with humans: angels had never been human.

"Well. Death, the horseman – he's gonna be there. And if we can stop him before he kick-starts this storm, get his ring back–"

"Yeah, you make it sound so easy." One had to appreciate the enthusiasm from the older Winchester – not even Birdie should be able to miss that.

"Hell, I'm just tryin' to put a spin on it."

"Well, not saying you aren't succeeding. I just don't get how you put all this together, Bobby?"

"That's our cue, Stuart. Let's go meet the Winchesters."

Tugging right the lapels of his suit, Crowley strode into the kitchen and into view from the library. He spotted Singer in the corner of his eye – looking a mite uncomfortable with the question. In his defence, he managed to sound at least a little light-hearted about it.

"I had, you know… help."

Crowley helped himself to a glass of Singer's whiskey: an elaborately untroubled action, with a delicate finishing _clink_ to draw the attention of the assembly in the library. If the newcomers were puzzled by Stuart's presence it was nothing compared to how hostile they were to his own.

"Don't be so modest. I barely helped at all." Whiskey glass in one hand and the other comfortably tucked into his pocket, Crowley sauntered into the doorway. Ah, the looks on their faces – almost as enjoyable as the whiskey. "Hello, boys. Pleasure, et cetera." Much more enjoyable than the whiskey: after a brief whiff he decided it better to leave it on Singer's drawers. Besides, Birdie was shooting him glares that suggested he might be in for hostilities – no need to ruin his suit more than it already had been. "Go ahead." Crowley smiled. "Tell them. There's no shame in it."

"Bobby? Tell us what?"

Ah yes – the Moose always was the quicker thinker of the two. He had an inkling what was going on. Singer himself was outdoing Birdie in the dagger-glaring competition; Crowley rewarded him a smile and an encouraging little wiggle of his head.

"…World's gonna end", he said at long last. "Seems stupid to get all precious over one little… soul."

Delightful, to be at the centre of so much attention.

"YOU SOLD YOUR SOUL?!" Dean exploded.

"Oh, more like pawned it", Crowley assured with perfect sincerity. "I fully intend to give it back."

"Well then give it back!"

Dean got off his chair like a professional boxer ready to enter the ring: a professional boxer ready to enter the ring and lose, because Crowley held the winning cards and the Winchester boy knew it.

"I will." He didn't budge an inch, even with Dean's murderous face close enough to smell the hunter's breath.

"Now!"

Like dangling a steak above a dog and making it bark. As entertaining as that game was, Moose took the cake. Why concern yourself with your friend's soul when there were more important things to consider?

"Did you kiss him?"

"Sam!" Dean snapped.

"Kiss…?!" Stuart looked like he had swallowed a live slug.

This moment, Crowley decided, was worth every pain and ruined suit this whole Armageddon fuckery had cost him.

"Just wondering", Sam defended himself with a concerned scowl.

All eyes settled on Bobby Singer. It was beautiful. _Beautiful_. Singer looked at Sam, looked at Dean, looked at Birdie and the exorcist – you could see the panic scrambling all over his face for some place to hide.

There was none. And Singer knew it.

"No!" he burst out finally, and pulled all of his features together into the most convincingly incredulous grimace he could muster.

Crowley had anticipated such a reaction.

Clearing his throat, and raising his smartphone, he presented the evidence to the room. If only he had had two phones, he could have filmed the god-help-me look on Singer's face. And the incredulous looks of the Winchesters when they squinted at the selfie shot. And Stuart's look of blank-faced horror.

Once the Apocalypse was dealt with he would most definitely buy himself another phone. And new suits.

"Why'd you take a picture?" It was the voice of a very old, very tired man.

Crowley allowed himself a glance at the phone and a pause for effect.

"Why did you have to use tongue?"

All eyes swivelled from him to Singer. Except one pair.

" _That's_ how you make deals with demons in this dimension?" To say Stuart was disturbed by the thought was an understatement; the figurative slug looked like it might be crawling its way back up.

Worth all the Armageddon fuckery.

"And who are you?!"

"Did he just say 'dimension'?"

The kid didn't know which Winchester to answer first; he was too busy trying not to be taut as a violin string. Ah, but Birdie seemed about to provide the answer for him. The angel had risen and approached Stuart with that constipated look of his.

"Dean, do you remember what I said of time? That it is fluid: that it can be bent, by certain beings." Stuart seemed increasingly bothered by having the angel all up in his face. "When you do, there are… traces."

"Great, great: you can admire my traces from a distance, okay?"

Birdie glanced down at the hand braced against his chest, then back up at Stuart. Angels and people skills – now there's the title of the world's shortest book.

"He is human." The angel stepped away. "But someone has worked powerful magic around him. Whoever did bent not just time but space, and brought him here from an alternate reality."

"English, if you don't mind", Singer grunted. "And for the record he passed the holy water test."

" _He_ did, but what about the thing that sent him here? Just how powerful magic are we talking here, Cass?" Moose glued his eyes to the angel as if ignoring Stuart would prevent him from overhearing. "Angel powerful? Archangel powerful?"

"Guys, I can explain–"

"You would have to be an archangel, or something even more powerful, to transcend the vastness between realities."

"Okay just… What are we talking about here? The sequel to Butterfly Effect?" Dean, of course. Poor boy looked from one to the other in the hopes that somebody would put things in simple enough words for his plebeian brain.

"I don't know what that is but look, let me explain. I live in the 70's: not your 70's but the 70's of an alternate timeline. An alternate reality. Kinda like yours but not the same. I'm a hunter, sort of, and I got sent here by a demon king who specialises in manipulating time and space."

Oh now he had done it…

"Why?" If you want to make an enemy of Dean Winchester, just mention that you're in league with demons. "Why would a demon send you here?"

"So I could help you."

"Yeah? With what, exactly? What can you do that we can't?"

To Stuart's credit he didn't stutter out some half-assed attempt at an explanation, as one might have expected. He didn't say anything at all, but his tight-lipped silence was betrayed by a brightening red tint to his ears.

"I'll know when the time comes", he said at long last.

"Oh great! Just fucking great!" Dean threw his arms in the air and turned around. "See what happens when you team up with demons, Sammy?! Bobby's lost his soul, Cass has lost his powers, and now some other demon assbag has spies in our base!"

"Dean, calm down – and for the record I don't think this has anything to do with Cass'–"

"I'm not a spy!"

"Spies stay out of family business!"

"Is it too much to ask of you idjits to act like grown men?!"

Satan's vessel and his overprotective brother, a drunk in a wheelchair, and an exorcist handpicked by the trickster god of time: humanity's last hope.

Crowley recollected his whiskey glass. Just in time, too, because he was most definitely not drunk enough to deal with Stuart's next words.

"I just wanted to meet Dean Winchester! He's my favourite character and when I heard I could meet him I… What?"

The shouting match deflated into something that could quite accurately be described as a 'what?' filling the room from floor to ceiling, although the glances exchanged between the Winchesters added an undertone of 'not again'. Crowley lowered his whiskey glass: whatever bizarre story was buried here, he was determined to hear about it.

"You're kidding me? Another crazy fan?" Dean Winchester: a guy with severe temper issues. "Look, why don't you bugger off to your convention and let us do our job? 'Cause in case you haven't noticed, we're too busy to write autographs. Go play Cluedo and read creepy fanfiction or whatever."

"What? No, I'm here to he–"

"You know what? We don't need extra help." Dean Winchester's temper issues were in Crowley's face within seconds, along with an accusingly stabbing finger. "You send your spy back to the 70's and give Bobby his soul, _now_. Deal's off."

"I'm afraid I can't do that."

"But you _can_ give his soul back", Moose pressed on.

"I can. But I won't."

"What did you say?" As if his poor suit hadn't suffered enough already, its lapels were now crinkled up in Dean's fists.

"I won't. It's my only insurance against you", Crowley declared, gaze firmly meeting Dean's. "I'm not an 'idjit'. You kill demons." He shot a look past the hunter's shoulder. "Gigantor over there has tried several times already and I doubt your guardian angel would mind terribly if he succeeded. So no, not giving that soul back. Not until all this is over."

"You son of a bitch", Singer growled.

"I'm pretty sure I can convince you to give it back", Dean hissed into his face. Ah, yes: that look. It was easy to forget that Dean Winchester had spent a year in Hell's dungeon gutter, but when he wore that look you could see it. The memories. The nightmares. The man he had become.

That was one of Samael's favourite quotes, wasn't it?

"He who fights with monsters might take care, lest he thereby become a monster. How's that going for you, cowboy?" Crowley smiled: a smile as thin and toxic as only truth can be.

"FOCUS, dammit!" It's no small feat, to shout in the middle of a cold war and be both heard and heeded. He wouldn't have expected something like that from Stuart, with his standoffish speech and gleaming shards, but that boy hid the makings of a commander. "Stop arguing about the past and start thinking about the future, okay? What little's left of it. We gotta work with what we have, not–"

"Have you been listening?! Bobby's soul–"

"He'll get it back. Crowley's got no place to run, does he?" Up close, Stuart's glare was more piercing than he had given him credit for. "If he does you can summon him right back and kick his ass."

…But those were some peculiar eyes, weren't they? Not quite human and not quite demonic. Just what kind of toy had Samael acquired…?

"This is none of your business, kid. Get out of my–"

"Dean, he's right." Moose put a hand on his brother's shoulder, ready to pull him away if necessary. Thank goodness at least one of them had a brain. "Crowley's not going anywhere. We should focus on stopping the Apocalypse – now that we actually know how."

A tense moment followed, hanging in the balance between truce and open war like explosive gas. Crowley met Dean's eyes unwaveringly, chin slightly raised in defiance.

"You got it." Dean released Crowley, though not after making sure his suit would be as rumpled as possible. "Let's get the last Horseman."


	3. Into jaws of death we go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello. It's been some time again. I didn't write a Christmas Special this year - again. You'd think I had come to terms with the pace life goes by now but it still baffles me how each year seems to pass faster and faster. 2017 was a dramatic year personally and globally.
> 
> You all are amazing, you know that? You're all beautifully written stories that I wish I had the time to learn more about, inspiring and heartbreaking and breathtaking as you are. I receive comments from you that make me cry and make me squeal, and they make me want to pay you back with the best stories I can possibly deliver.
> 
> You mean a lot to me, and I want you to know that especially in this season, when all aren't fortunate to have warm, sincere get-togethers with family and friends. We've never met and we probably won't ever meet, but you mean a lot to me.
> 
> Happy holidays, everyone!  
> /Dimwit

Meeting Dean Winchester was _the_ coolest thing Shirou had ever done in his life – better than playing the whole Order Court for fools, better than hang gliding with his shahrokh familiar – and he had fucked it up in five minutes.

Many things can be said – and have been said – about stubbornness. Those who possess it pride themselves on it, and those who are subjected to it grumble that pride is a sin and damn if obstinacy shouldn't be one, too. There are two sides to every coin, however, and stubbornness can turn failure into success simply through refusal to give up.

Thus Shirou tailed Dean out of the house as he went to load the car for Chicago, and proceeded to fuck things up.

"Look, what happened back there was my mistake, okay? You guys don't have the same view of demons as we do, I know that." Had just been too starstruck to think of lying. "And I know this isn't back home. I know the rules are different. I'm not here to cause you any trouble, I swear, I'm just–"

"No one asked you to come." Dean finished securing the straps of the extra jerry can of holy water and stalked right past Shirou, heading for the storage shed across the yard.

"That doesn't mean I can't be useful." Shirou hurried after him, contemplating if there was a way of hurrying after someone without seeming too obviously desperate. "We work the same job – technically, if I'm from the 70's I've been at this for 40 years."

Dean didn't so much as snort at the attempted joke. Well shit.

"You wanna be useful?" A 20kg sack of rock salt was shoved into Shirou's arms. "Get to work, kid."

"It's Shirou."

A plastic bucket filled with shotgun shells clunked down at his feet.

"Get to work, Shirow."

"…never mind."

Shirou spent the next eternity on the stairs of Bobby's porch, prepping rock salt ammunition while mentally milling out bad and less bad icebreakers. His brain served him well when it came to delivering snarky comebacks, as it had been conditioned to do for years; this radical, novel demand to say something that would gain people's approval produced a reaction like asking a calculator to divide by zero. Meanwhile, Dean – object of teenagerly admiration and far-flung dreams – was right in front of him loading the trunk of the car, _right in front of him_ , and Shirou kept stealing glances in some vain hope that _Dean_ would make the first move.

Kind of like checking out a girl.

" _Worse than checking out a girl._ " He picked up another shotgun casing and ignored the way the rock salt stung in every minuscule dry crack on his fingers. " _There's millions of girls and one Dean Winchester._ "

The wooden stairs shifted and creaked. Shirou had always known Sam Winchester was described as "tall and muscular" in the series but seeing him in real life he was just… _intimidating_. A wall of muscle. A brainy little geek in a mecha suit of muscle. He must have weighed 100 kg or more – Shirou could feel the wooden boards bend under him when he walked past.

Dean halted his work when he spotted him approaching. Sighed. Rested his hands against the edge of the trunk.

"Let me guess: we're about to have a talk."

He didn't need to say more than that. Shirou got the message just from the look Dean sent him and muttered an excuse about going to see if Bobby and Cass needed help.

As it turned out, Bobby had been in the midst of explaining to a morally concerned Cass what occasional credit card fraud had to do with preventing the forces of evil from overrunning Earth.

"Good timing, kid: I got something I need help with and Castiel ain't gonna manage it on his own." Cass' troubled look became even more troubled. "Laundry. Judging by that coat of yours it's not something you do a lot." Bobby put his hands to the wheels and went ahead of them. "Haven't gotten around to installing a lift yet", he said over his shoulder, "so the basement is a li'l inaccessible."

Getting the laundry out of the tumble dryer and upstairs was easy; setting a new laundry was a challenge neither of them had been faced with before.

"This powder cleans garments?" Cass had poured a small pile of washing powder into his palm. He sniffed it. "Interesting."

"Uh-huh." Shirou eyed the front loaded machine with equal parts fascination and puzzlement. Eh, but what the hell. He had bluffed his way out of worse situations. "Just pour it in there so we can get it started."

"On the clothes?"

"Yeah." Shirou had only ever operated top fed washing machines. Honestly though. Front fed ones couldn't be that much different.

Then again – different time, different world. People here had satellite phones the size of cigarette cartons that could not only make calls but take photos and send written messages. Maybe they had just activated the washing machine's fire extinguisher function.

Shirou smiled at the thought, accompanied by a small huff. Cas gave him a weird look. Cas was weird on the whole. It _had_ crossed Shirou's mind to tell him you were supposed to snort the washing powder up your nose, and he probably would have done it too.

"You're not from around here either, are you?"

"No. I am an angel." Cas paused, exhaled a breath of thoughts too heavy to speak. "Or I was. My powers… I seem to have burnt out."

...Shirou wasn't quite sure how long it took for that information to pass from his ears to his brain.

"Angel…? As in up in heaven, wings and stuff?" Cass – a fucking _angel –_ nodded. "Can I ask… questions?" He tried not to be too blatantly hopeful. Fate liked to punish those who were.

"You may ask, but be warned that I might not possess the answers."

"Is there a God?" It seemed like a simple enough question: angels would know, right?

Shirou's gut tightened slowly, a feeble attempt to keep itself from dropping out of his body: because Cass' eyes held doubt, not answers. The same doubt Shirou knew from days of nothing but distractions and nights that gnawed holes through his mind. He had hoped there was justice, if not in this life then at least after, when due punishment came to those who deserved it: but the idea that angels were no wiser than humans, that no God spoke even to the ones who were meant to carry out God's will…

"There is a God. Only…" Cass trailed off, but Shirou knew that look. "He is not what I thought He was."

"He betrayed you", he murmured. "Betrayed your trust in him." Shirou pretended to be fully absorbed by the revolutions of the washing machine, fully absorbed in dirty clothing that turned over and over, neverending circles, cycles, eras...  
_  
Is there a God, or is there just another Demon King playing masquerade?_

"He… abandoned us." Cass pronounced the word carefully, in case it tasted even more bitter than betrayal. "This world that He created, and everything in it. I thought of Him as a father: a fearsome father, but a loving one." He joined Shirou in staring at the rhythmic motions of the washing machine. "Now I know He is a father who leaves His children to drift without guidance towards their doom."

Could watching a washing machine spin make your head spin as well...?

"Look…" He spoke? Shirou could not remember deciding to speak. But speak he did. "Maybe that's… the thing?" Cass did not understand. Shirou didn't either. His brain was making an attempt at those winning-people-over words and was tottering about it like a toddler on soaped tarp.

A toddler…?

"When you're a kid you need guidance", Shirou said slowly, feeling the thought come together and make sense, "but when you're grown up you take care of yourself. Maybe that's what God's doing? Maybe this is about his faith in you, not your faith in him?"

Cass took a few moments to piece together what Shirou was saying. Then he responded in a voice low and calm enough to peel flesh from bone.

"This is nothing like human children gaining independence from their parents. This is the end of the world. Only God can prevent it, and He won't."

And because Shirou was Shirou, and his brain was a suicidal piece of junk…

"Well you know what? Fuck God." If you can't persuade them the nice way, stick with what you know. It might not get them on your side but holy shit you get a fun look on their faces. "Come on, we've all thought that at some point – I think it at least twice a day. You might not be aware but you've thought it, too."

Cass rose from his seat swiftly yet deliberatly, like a predator in slow motion. Or an angel about to smite a blasphemer.

"I have never thought–"

"Well why're you here then? Hah?" Shirou discovered, to his mild dismay, that he was looking _up_ at Cass even when standing toe-to-toe with him. "What's the point of sitting here with us petty mortals making plans to cage the Devil if you think God's the only one who can do it, unless some part of you at some point said 'you won't help? well then _fuck you_ , I'll fix it myself' and ditched Heaven altogether? That's not you believing in God, that's you believing in _you_ – in these humans – and that you can stop the Apocalypse." Looking into the eyes of an ages old entity felt like a Very Bad Idea, he realised when the stare-down competition continued. It felt like withering, like all the years he hadn't yet lived were washing out of his bones.

Then again, it wasn't the first – or last – bad idea he had. Nor was it the only time he had stared down an ages old entity.

"Looking to fall a bit further, Cupid?"

There had absolutely not been a Crowley sitting atop the washing machine moments ago, but the past is usually outshadowed by the demands of the present. There was a Crowley on the washing machine now, and he looked ready to demand.

* * *

A demon, strictly speaking, is just another salesman: when he doesn't conduct business, he loiters. Crowley was quite proficient in loitering, a talent matched only by his aptitude at snooping; unfortunately, Singer mastered in Hunting and paranoia.

Moving about a house where every interesting object might also be a lethal object was perhaps the most well-designed devil's trap yet, Crowley mused, trying to summon even an ounce of interest in the mundane things that – also – littered Singer's house as if garbage were abandoned kittens that needed to be rescued.

" _Collect all kinds of lost-and-found, do you...?_ " Crowley plucked the picture frame from its place on the cluttered library desk.

He had seen it when he sealed the deal with Singer: a soul shorn by loss and desperate not to lose again – all these remnant keepsakes, all these abandoned kittens...  
_  
"Sentimental creatures, humans."_ Crowley put the photograph back down: Bobby, the Winchester kids, and two women that also had the air of Hunter about them. How very–

...his attention fell on a newspaper – today's, believe it or not – thrown on the desk next to the picture frame. Blaring headlines. The fear of swine flu had turned into an epidemic of its own, fanned by newspapers hoping to sell extra copies if their headlines tickled those reptile brain instincts enough.

Every salesman knows it is people's emotions you appeal to, not their intellect.

Every salesman…

Smoothing out the newspaper, Crowley read the headline again.  
_  
It's too late…?_

He picked the paper up, leafed ahead to the article advertised on the front page: swine-flu, demands of intervention… vaccine in development by Niveus… first batch to be shipped on Wednesday…

"Clever, clever…" Crowley snapped the newspaper shut, folded it in half. Eyes grim and paper in a firm grip, he stalked out of the library to assemble the Hunters.

Every salesman knows it is people's emotions you appeal to – and fear is by far the most lucrative one.

* * *

Castiel declined to join the little get-together, or so Crowley interpreted his adamant stone-walling. Granted, it was standard angel protocol: meet a demon, give it the silent treatment. Demons would try to trick you if you spoke to them, that was the official reason – and while that was undeniably true, it was equally true that angels were inept at witty comebacks and had a pride issue about it.

"Aaand: scene." Human sentimentality indeed: next time he would interrupt the Winchesters he'd bring air freshener. Singer and Stuart in tow, he walked up to the blues brothers and handed the newspaper to the one who was most likely to be literate. "There's something you need to see."

The rest flocked around the Moose like children eager for a fairy tale.

"Niveus pharmaceuticals – get it?" They didn't. Nobody did. They _did_ look convinced that he was phrasing himself vaguely on purpose for the opportunity to declare them all idiots.

How perceptive.

"You two are lucky you have your looks. Your demon lover, Brady? V.P. of distribution, Niveus. Ahh yes, that the sound of the abacus clacking? We all caught up?"

"…Not really."

Stuart. Of course. The team mascot, as indispensible as sugar on Coco Pops.

"Pestilence was spreading swine flu." Good thing Moose had plenty of practice explaining things to idiots. "But that wasn't the real goal, just step one: _this_ is the real goal. Pestilence's henchmen run Niveus."

"The vaccine is step two." Dean decided to speak. How lovely. He always had such valuable input to the discussion. "Only it's not a vaccine. You think–"

"I _know._ " Better cut him off before he burnt out all four of his brain cells. "I'll stake my reputation that vaccine is stock-full of Grade A, farm-fresh croatoan virus. Which", he added, with an extra obvious look at Stuart, "is as close as you get to literally unleashing Hell on earth."

Now, _this_ photo. These faces they were making right now. _That_ , Crowley would have framed and put on his desk.

"Simultaneous countrywide distribution." Moose made a tight-lipped nod. Disappointed in himself for not piecing the puzzle together sooner? "It's quite the plan."

"They don't get to be horsemen for nothing. So you boys better stock up on… well. Everything. This time next Thursday we'll all be living in zombie land – unless our ace up the sleeve knows how to fix that, too", he added with another glance in Stuart's direction.

The boy chose to pretend that Samael's translation spell had suffered a temporary shutdown.

* * *

No one spoke when they loaded the cars. The sound of their supplies took up all the airspace: thumping into the trunk heavier than they were, readjusted more times than they needed, checked over more times than they could afford.

Checked over for that very reason. Once everything was packed, once there was nothing more to adjust...

"Alright, well…" Dean hid the tremor behind a smile that fooled no one. "Good luck stopping the whole zombie apocalypse."

"Yeah." Sam tried to sound like he believed that was possible. "Good luck killing Death."

"Yeah."

Not a good bye, not a good luck. What passed between the brothers then was too raw to be put in words, too frail to be exposed to a world that had taken enough already.

Shirou took great interest in a dozen tyres stacked a comfortable distance away. Such shape. Such craftsmanship.

"…Remember when we would just… hunt wendigos? How simple things were?" Sam sounded like he didn't quite remember it himself, as if wishful daydreams had taken on the shape of memories and momentarily fooled his mind.

"Not really." Dean tried, but the smile was wan with the many things that had changed since then.

A similar smile passed over Sam's features, briefly. Mirror smiles. Ghost smiles.

"Well, uh…" Sam fumbled for a moment when he grasped the demon slaying knife. He held it out to Dean as casually as he could. "You might need this."

"Keep it. Dean's covered." Trust _Crowley_ to barge in between them. But Shirou's attention quickly shifted to the weapon he held up in place of the knife. It was a scythe – sickle, rather. A small, viciously curved sickle that… _thrummed_. "Death's own. Kills – golly – demons and angels and reapers – and, rumour has it, the very thing itself."

"Rumour?" Shirou raised his eyebrows. "You expect us to take on Death armed with rumours?"

"Got other suggestions, Mr. Usually-I-just-improvise?"

"That's what improvisation is about, isn't it? I'll figure it out when I get there." … _hopefully._

"You're sending us to kill the Devil with the Colt again?" Dean crossed his arms and shot Crowley a look that demanded further explanation before he would consider buying this.

Crowley didn't so much as look at Dean; he was looking at Sam, with something that was supposed to resemble pity.

"Is he always like that? No wonder he gets on your nerves."

"Hey!"

"For your information: no." Crowley returned his attention to Dean with all the intensity of a welder. "This is nothing like killing the Devil with a man-made magical revolver. This was not made by humans." He held the sickle up, turned it slowly to reflect the light – but it never did. As if the blade was made of shadow rather than steel, it refused to even glimmer. "This is made with magic older than the world itself; if this can't put a scratch on Death, nothing can."

Shirou couldn't doubt him as much as he wanted to. Whatever power the sickle possessed it had an effect not unlike Samael's; an anomaly, a _pulse_ , a presence that ever so slightly distorted the very universe around it.

"Just… Take it, Dean", Sam said finally. When his brother still hesitated, he spread his arms a fraction and let them drop back to his sides. "What else have we got?"

Wordlessly, Dean accepted the sickle.

"Excellent. So, shall we?" Crowley looked around at them as though he were a teacher taking his pre-schoolers on a class trip. "Bobby, you just gonna sit there?"

"No, I'm gonna riverdance."

"I suppose, if you wanna impress the ladies."

Weird looks settled on Crowley. The demon himself only seemed to enjoy the attention and drew the moment out as much as possible.

"Bobby, Bobby, Bobby. Really wasted that crossroads deal. Fact: you get more, if you phrase it properly." So typical of demons. You had to wonder if their contractors ever died of natural causes before they got to the point of actually forming a contract. "So, I took the liberty of adding a teeny little Sub-A clause on your behalf."

Shirou tensed instinctively – they all did. When demons took liberties with people's contracts it was rarely to the benefit of the contractor.

Crowley weathered the suspicious glares with unflappable calm, turning his hands out in a gesture of unassuming innocence.

"What can I say? I'm an altruist." He turned halfway, as if to leave, then halted and glanced back at Bobby once more. "Just gonna sit there?" he repeated.

No way. Shirou stared at Bobby, at his wheelchair and at his legs. _No way._

Demons could work miracles, yes. Theoretically. If they weren't snarky, self-absorbed pricks like Crowley.

They all stared as Bobby's foot twitched – hesitantly, as if it didn't dare try. As if it didn't dare believe. Then his other foot moved. Then, with a shaky breath that wanted the impossible to be real, Bobby grasped the handles of the wheelchair, and stood. The held breath left him: a sharp rush of air, of joy and disbelief, and something in his eyes that was alive like it hadn't been for a long time.

"…Son of a bitch", was all he could get out.

"Yes, I know", Crowley said matter-of-factly. "Completely worth your soul. I'm a hell of a guy."

Bobby agreed. Not verbally, but the look on his face said it all; he might even kiss Crowley a second time out of pure gratitude.

"Thanks", he murmured breathlessly.

"This is getting maudlin", Crowley muttered and turned. "Can we go?"

Shirou snorted, grinning knowingly at the back of Crowley's sweeping coat. Yeah, typical of demons.

* * *

Shirou approached it like one would approach the sacred altar of a… On second thought, he approached it with more reverence than he would have approached anything sacred of any kind. Dean Winchester's Impala was a thing out of legend. Even when it was right in front of him, and getting closer with each step, it wasn't really there. It wasn't really a car. It was a thousand tales and memories made solid: something he could see but not touch. Something that could be imagined but never physically real. Something… sacred.

"What're you waiting for?"

Shirou lurched back into the present. Dean had just opened the door to the driver's seat.

"Nothing." Shirou still took a moment longer than necessary to grip the handle of the back seat door. He was touching the Impala; he was going to _ride_ the Impala; he was going to remember every second, every texture, every smell of that ride.

"Wrong door." Shirou looked up to see Dean halfway into the driver's seat – nodding at the shotgun door.

Shirou had to swallow hard, and fight down his pulse with a mallet, in order not to make an ass of himself before his idol.

"Sure thing", he smiled, and slipped his fingers into the handle of the front seat door. " _I'm riding shotgun he's letting me ride shotgun Dean Winchester is letting me–_ "

"Why does Midget ride shotgun?"

If Shirou had had an actual mallet nearby he would have fit it squarely into Crowley's mouth.

"Midget didn't set me up to get my ass kicked by a demon, that's why", Dean clarified and gestured for Crowley to get in the back seat.

"I just gave Bobby back his legs – what did _he_ ever do for you?"

"Not set me up to get my ass kicked: get in the car."

* * *

Looking cool had never been as difficult as when the three of them sped down the highway towards Chicago. What kept Shirou focused was vivid memories of Samael bouncing around Faust Mansion with his new Kamen Rider action doll like a squealing wind-up toy. That was not the impression he wanted to make on Dean.

But what should he say? Come on. It wasn't _really_ like checking out a girl. He just didn't want to say anything too cliché, like admiring the car, or anything too sensitive like asking about his dad. Preferably it should be something funny. Something they both could relate to. Something...

"What's the story with Crowley setting you up?"

"Yes, what _is_ the story?" Crowley inquired with something in between mockery and curiosity. "Everything went according to plan."

Dean huffed and muttered something under his breath before gathering his voice:

"The story is that we needed to find out where Pestilence was. So that asshole", he tossed his head at the back seats, "comes up with a plan to go to Niveus and negotiate the location out of their V.P in exchange for the Horsemen rings. Well howdy-doody: turns out the V.P doesn't want the rings at all and decides he'd rather spend his time playing human pinball. And _that_ was the real plan. Using me as bait so he could lure the demon into an ambush." Dean glared at the backseat. "He just forgot to mention that small detail."

"I told you, it wouldn't have worked if you knew. You're a hunter, not an actor: Brady would have seen through any mediocre performance you put on. And it worked, so what's the problem?"

"Have you ever pissed blood? 'Cause _that_ , for your information, is a problem."

"Dude are you sure he's not Samael?"

"Who? Crowley?"

"Yeah – 'cause Samael pulled the _exact_ same thing on me."

"You're kidding?"

"Not at all! Using-you-for-his-plans-without-telling-you-what-the-plans-are is his hallmark. I was on crutches for weeks!" Shirou's enthusiasm did not add up with being on crutches for weeks: he cleared his throat and reminded himself of the Kamen Rider doll. "So, there was this meeting: two factions of the organisation that didn't get along, and we needed them to get along. I wasn't a licensed exorcist at the time so he'd arranged for me to bunk with the wives and kids, 'cause it's one of those meetings that drag on for days since they never agree. And in the middle of the night: bam. Tengus swarm the place. I had to hold the building till the exorcists made it over to us with back up." Missions are never the same when you describe them. The details are never as sharp as the sounds and the smells the adrenaline has carved into your memory. "It ended well, no casualties – just like he'd planned it. It's textbook. If you have people who don't get along, give them a common enemy and force them to work together to make it through alive."

"Sounds like Crowley alright."

"Yeah they seem to have a similar sense of humour."

"Not exactly the word I'd use", Dean huffed. "Does he do that jump-scare thing, too? Appears behind you out of nowhere just 'cause he can?"

"All. The fucking. Time."

"Man." He shook his head like one too tired to care anymore. "Demons."

"Oh don't mind me. Just thought you might want to consider, if we focus on the present, that Samael is pulling the same move on us at this very moment." You could almost, but not quite, suspect Crowley of feeling left out of the conversation. "You don't know what you're supposed to do here; we don't know what we're supposed to do with you. All of us neatly kept in the dark so Samael can have fun."

"That's another thing about demons", Shirou grinned. "They love to play people: they hate being played."

"We're all in the same leaky tin can of a boat, in case that passed you by: though it seems I'm the only one worried about not having a rudder."

"If you don't like Samael's boat then maybe you shouldn't have struck a deal with him?" Shirou suggested cheerfully.

"That's what you get, working with demons." Dean grinned from ear to ear.

* * *

Stubbornness can indeed do many things for you. It can turn failure into success, despair into victory, or ridicule into recognition.

As often is the case, it's not what things can do but what things _can't_ do that matters in the end. An hour into the drive to Chicago, Shirou had to acknowledge that stubbornness did not make carsickness go away. And while it was embarrassing to ask Dean to stop the car when they were smack in the middle of the most important task of their lives, he would rather let the world end than puke in The Impala.

"You gotta stop the car", he croaked, careful not to use any abdominal muscle force to speak.

"We all went to the bathroom before we left. You can wait till we're halfway. Gotta gain as much ground as we can here."

"Carsick", Shirou grimaced as a wave of nausea gushed through him. "Really carsick."

Dean didn't argue with that. Shirou miraculously held it in until they could pull up at a rest stop but he didn't more than open the door before it came out.

"Very professional", Crowley commented. "Just the kind of help one would expect Samael to send."

"Shut up: it's you guys' fault in the first place. I was never motion sick until he began teleporting me."

"Oh man teleportation sucks", Dean groaned. "I didn't shit for a week."

Shiro chortled and spat, rinsing his mouth as best he could with no drink at hand.

"Guess the effect varies from person to person."

"Or between teleporters. I got zapped by an angel. Didn't even know demons could teleport people, that could'a been useful in many–" Dean's voice died abruptly. After a moment of staring blankly ahead, he spun around and glared at Crowley. "Why didn't you do _that_ when we were breaking into Niveus? Or when the fucking hellhounds crashed our hideout?!"

"Oh I'm sorry: I was under the impression that taking out supernatural creatures was your job?"

"'Cause he's a demon and demons are dickbags", Shirou filled in and pulled a cigarette out of his carton. For lack of water, smoke bombing the taste out of his mouth was the second best option.

"This is a no smoking flight, kid."

Shirou clenched his teeth. This was going to be a _long_ ride.

"Can we give some credit where credit is due, please? If anyone deserves the title 'demon dickbag' it's the bag of dicks that sent you here."

"That doesn't make you any better, even if he _is_ worse", Shirou returned. "I give him ten dicks out of ten – Dean, how would you rank Crowley?"

"He's a solid ten."

"Fine but Samael's scale is in horse dicks."

"I'm sure he'll be elated to hear that – now, if we can diverge from the fascinating topic of supernumerary genitalia for a moment, and spend that brain power on figuring out why you're here, we might actually have a plan for catching Death by the time we reach Chicago."

"I don't know if it really counts as 'figuring out'..." In the backseat, Crowley pretended hard not to soak up every word. "You're my favourite character in a series", Shirou glanced at Dean, "and this is my birthday – so… Yeah. Not really blow out the candles and make a wish but kinda; it's _part_ of the reason. I don't know what I'm supposed to do but I know _why_ I'm here."

"Wow. Sends his friend to the Apocalypse for a birthday gift." Dean nodded mechanically, as if the motion helped his brain process the thought. "I don't wanna know what he does to his enemies."

"Well. For one, he doesn't help them break into Niveus." Crowley studied his manicured nails, not really interested in discussing the topic. "Or gives them their legs back." Absolutely not interested in discussing the topic.

"We have an eight hour drive ahead of us, and I'm gonna exorcise your ass if you don't shut up about Bobby's legs. He said thank you – what more do you want? You already got his soul!"

" _In the worst thinkable way_." Shirou grimaced inwardly. Alternate realities, fine, but what was wrong about good old blood and parchment for signing contra– "Oh _that's_ why you gave him his legs." Shirou snickered around his cigarette substitute toothpick. When he caught Dean's confused look, he elaborated: "Hoping for another French kiss?" He sent a mean grin over the back of his seat. "Never would'a put bearded old hunters down as your type."

"Never would have put down a cocky smart-Alec as Samael's type. Oh, wait", Crowley smiled sweetly, "that's exactly his type."

The grin vanished from Shirou's lips. He had a good mind to put a blessed bullet in Crowley there and then, but – The Impala… Then Crowley's smirk grew even more satisfied with his reaction and you know what, The Impala had probably seen worse than a bullet hole in the upholstery.

"O-kay", Dean interrupted the glaring contest loudly, "I don't care what you two do in the bedroom as long as it stays in the bedroom. Focus, guys."

"The only thing I've done in Samael's bedroom is watch anime."

"With his libido? Please. It's a running joke in Hell that Samael rode Noah's ark, and we're not talking about the boat."

"Dude…!" Dean's face said everything.

"Did he?"

"Desecrate every species of animal named? Probably not, but you know him: gotta catch 'em all."

"No, I meant was he on the ark?" Shiro knew all about Samael's promiscuous orientation. But Noah's ark? He had been around that long? And he had been on it for what reason?

"Do I look eight thousand years old? Or do I look like a guy who would mock his superiors for banging anything that breathes?"

"How creative do you want me to get with what you look like?"

"I believe we just established that I'm a solid ten."

"What I'd like to know", Dean said loud enough to drown out anything Shirou might have responded, "is how an exorcist from the 70's, in another reality, knows that we even exist. Since you came here on special request and everything. How does that even work, unless Chuck's books somehow time travelled and… reality travelled."

"Timelines", Crowley said before Shirou had even a chance to open his mouth. "There's more timelines in the universe than either of us can ever hope to imagine. All different but containing more or less the same elements – like your average blockbuster movie. There's sure to be a Sam and Dean Winchester, in some form, in most of them."

"M-mh, what Samael said – sorta. With more words. Sam and Dean Winchester are characters in a series that runs in the Malak, a bi-monthly magazine the exorcist Order issues. It's what everybody talks about when they're fed up with writing mission reports. I think there's even a few illustrated comics with side stories, but they're released in the U.S. so I haven't been able to read them."

"Wait. Just wait." Dean left one hand on the wheel and used the other to halt any speech in the car while he struggled to put words on his new epiphany. "If we're some bi-monthly series in another dimension, does that mean books in our world could be real stories of real people in other dimensions?"

"Uh… I suppose?"

"Shit", Dean said profoundly to the windscreen. "I can never read Wolverine again. Or Deadpool. Or– Hey, what's the name? Our series in that newspaper, what's it called?"

"Supernatural."

"Aw come on! Even in an alternate reality? Why don't they ever come up with something cool, like Hellbeast Hunters? Or Fairy Fighters?"

"Excellent name", Crowley pitched in. "Doesn't make you think of a junior figure skating team at all."

"Luggage doesn't talk, alright?" Then a hearty chuckle broke through and lit up his whole face. "Wait wait, I know: Sanctified with Dynamite. _That's_ the title of our series." Dean drummed his fingers on the wheel to some unheard rhythm, looking pleased with himself as he hummed a melody that sounded vaguely like "dy, dy, dynamite – hallelujah".

"Not Boobs, Bullets & Booze?"

"That's the director's cut, not the version they run in that exorcist magazine", he said with a knowing grin. "Alright but your series? If there were books about you, what would they be called?"

"Uuhhhh… Till the Next Goodbye, maybe."

"Oh man I'm glad you have the Stones in your reality, the 70's wouldn't have existed without– Hey. I know _exactly_ what your series would be called." Dean turned his head and beamed at him with a childish delight that made Shirou want to burn the moment into his retina permanently. "I Kick Ass For The Lord."

"Uhh… I guess?"

The confused-but-agreeing look was not what Dean had expected. His beaming dimmed. Then he frowned: then he tossed an eye at Crowley.

"Dude what year did _Braindead_ come out?"

"You're his brother, I expected you would know."

"You just got your eleventh dick, buddy." He returned his eyes to the road. "For the record I was hilarious right now. There's a movie called _Braindead_ : whenever it comes to your reality you'll understand."

"Unless it's about something else entirely in my reality", he mused. "Like a junior figure skating team."

Dean chortled, and Shirou felt like he might have actually subverted the fuckup this time.

* * *

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a demon was laughing himself to tears. It was not Crowley.

The miles rolled past beneath the wheels of the Winchesters' car, and the only thing the two nitwits in the front seemed to concern themselves with was fish stories and silly naming games. As if Samael – King of Mischief and Malintent – would use a deal of this magnitude to grant a blasted _birthday wish._

There was more. In his bones, in his gut, in the shrivelled black core of his being, Crowley knew there was more.

It had been hours, but it might as well have been days, when they pulled the car over to a gas station a short distance from Galena. Between stretching his legs and resting his ears, Crowley made the terribly difficult choice to remain in the car. Let the hunters kick tires and talk engine performance.

The sickle _might_ kill Death. It was a calculated guess because what else possibly could? Nonetheless, it was a guess. Samael had looked at that sickle like a dog looking at a broiler chicken: and Samael and Death went far back. So if Crowley had a feeling of nausea thrumming in the pit of his gut, well, it wasn't because he was carsick.

When an all-too-familiar howl pricked the hairs at the back of his neck, he realised it wasn't exclusively because of Samael's potential double-crossing either. And the hellhounds were close. _Very_ close.

Dean and Stuart had time enough to freeze and turn their heads towards the sound before the hounds came barrelling through the treeline.

Twenty metres: Dean dropped the gas hose and lunged for the trunk.

Fifteen metres: Stuart had pulled his gun and fired as rapidly as the mechanism allowed.

Ten: Dean's shotgun rock salt only made them angrier.

Five: things were about to get messy, and Crowley had his preferred ways of dealing with messy things.

He teleported.

Crowley had been called a coward more times than he could count – which did nothing but prove how malicious tongues love spouting baseless insults. Crowley was a strategist, and as such he recognised that standing smack in the middle of battle was not a strategic thing to do. He'd rather sit a comfortable distance away and let someone else do the fighting for him – or, in this case, something else.

Finding a safe haven was harder than finding hair on eggs these days, if your name was Crowley and featured on a respectable number of Hell's wanted posters. Obtaining a hellhound had been one of the best decisions of his life, he reminded himself as he materialised in the ramshackle hovel that was his current hideaway.

"Here, boy!" He whistled, and was answered by the sound of claws against wooden floor and a heavy body bumping into furniture and door frames; size, no matter what humans told themselves, did matter. "Time to play."

Crowley suppressed a shudder when the beast came into view. Demons could see hellhounds: humans couldn't. That was one of the very few things Crowley envied them.

He reappeared at the gas station just in time to… see the last of the hellhounds felled by two large hounds he had never seen before. He knew what they _were_ – oh yes. Every man and woman of Celtic descent had known what they were, centuries ago when Crowley had yet to be born and Fergus toiled through life as a mortal among mortals. They were creatures he had hoped yet not hoped to see, every Beltane when he glanced at the sky in case the bonfire light would catch the marvel of the Wild Hunt: the deathless huntsmen, and the ghostly, red-eyed hounds commanded by the gods of the underworld.

Crowley had never seen anything on Beltane. He had never seen anything that could explain what he saw now, when the hounds padded over to Stuart, white fur dripping with blood and red ears perched attentively.

Hounds waiting for the boy's command.

"Dismissed", was all Stuart said, and the creatures vanished in wisps of black smoke.

"You can control those things!?" The Winchester boy hung halfway inside and halfway outside the car, white as a sheet, and looked for all the world as though someone had picked him up and tossed him in like a manhandled rucksack.

"Only the ones I summon."

"Summon?! They're goddamn _hellhounds!_ "

"It's just something we do in my dimension!" Stuart's face was pale and drawn, highlights of sweat catching the lamplight from the gas station. "It's – whadda-ya-call-it – familiar spirits!"

Familiar spirits. The Winchester boy truly had to be deaf, blind and bucket-headed to believe a human could bind the hounds of hell to servitude, in this or any other dimension. That simply wasn't done – and, Crowley had a prickling feeling that Stuart knew that, too. Summoning the hounds would account for the fatigue painted on his features: but not for the apprehensive tension in his voice.

Samael had found himself a remarkable toy indeed…

"Run along, boy. You know the way back", Crowley murmured to his own hound, and it took off through the landscape in leaps and bounds. Now, to break up this tedious shouting match...

"I was helping you! What did it look like I was doing?!"

"Witchcraft is what it looked like to me! I should'a known you were in cahoots with Crowley all along!"

There we go again, blaming everything on the demon... Crowley teleported, this time appearing between the two idiots suddenly enough to startle the both of them into stepping back.

"So", he clapped his hands together, "I ordered a burger and got a Happy Meal – and the surprise toy is", he buried his gaze in Stuart's, "a witch."

"I said I'm not a witch!"

"Aren't you?" Crowley teleported behind Stuart and snatched his wrist, forced it up for inspection and attempted to sound surprised. "This cut looks fresh. And look, there are scars from similar cuts in the same area."

"I summon familiar spirits." Stuart sounded like the pressure would crack his teeth any minute. "I'm an exorcist, it's part of my weapon arsenal."

"It's witchcraft." Golly, what did Samael teach his subjects these days? Crowley let go of his wrist. "Like any other weapon, it can be used in whichever way the wielder pleases; you use it to fight demons", he shot a glance at the Winchester, just to be sure his point got across. "Nonetheless, I think you owe us both an explanation as to why, of all things, you summon hellhounds."

For a rare moment, Crowley had Dean's agreement. He felt almost as tainted as when Singer was back up walking.

"Those things are death on four legs", he muttered. "And arguably the most terrible demons around that are still weak enough to be subdued. Pretty handy to have around when you're an exorcist."

Words, words, but no answers – the boy definitely sounded like an acquaintance of Samael's. Which was something Crowley, coincidentally, had been dying to ask.

"Your magic: did you purchase it from Samael?"

"My _summoning_? No. Born with it."

Crowley searched his face long and hard for any trace of anything hidden...

"I'll be damned – twice." Shoving his hands in his pockets, Crowley could but rock back on his heels and quirk the kind of semi-awkward smile a salesman wears when he tries to congratulate someone who has landed a better bargain than he has. "A Natural witch. Samael must have pissed himself with excitement. Well then." He turned around and attempted to head for the car in a carefree manner. "I'll have my usual suite, if you're filled up and ready for Chicago."

* * *

Shirou kicked himself mentally. Threw some punches, too, for good measure. The relaxed, comfy feeling from before was blown away like autumn leaves, and the sharp, frost-lined twigs of winter was a pretty good metaphor for the current atmosphere.

"Guess we should get to Chicago before the storm hits." He didn't dare more than a furtive glance at Dean: for all he knew he might be left right there on the curb.

"Get in."

Shirou absorbed the words like a whiplash. Closed his eyes. Held his breath. Opened them again.  
_  
"Fucking idiot..._ " He grabbed the handle to the back seat – he'd rather have Crowley's sass than a cold shoulder from someone he actually–

"Shotgun, kid." The door to the driver's seat was open, but Dean had yet to enter. "Where I can see you."

Shirou let go of the handle.

" _Fucking idiot._ " He sank down in the front seat without looking at Dean. "I'm technically old enough to be your dad; can you stop calling me kid?"

"Can you stop being called a name I can't pronounce?"

"Try Stuart", the demon piped up from the back seat.

"Stuart…?"

"Stuart Little. Fits, doesn't it?"

Dean caught the reference, apparently: and apparently, Shirou's screw-up had shifted the balance so badly that Dean would even laugh at Crowley's jokes.

"Who the fuck is Stuart Little?"

"It's a–"

"Seriously?" Crowley levelled a deeply disappointed look at Dean. "I thought you were an older brother; teasing is part of the job description."

The Impala hummed to life, but it didn't immediately roll out of the gas station. Didn't immediately continue towards their destination, for that winter cold had filtered into Dean's fingers and kept them still.

"Things are a little different in this family." His hands clenched the wheel then relaxed, a spasm waking the muscles from whatever paralysis had struck them. "What about your folks?" he asked gruffly, as if speaking was another thing his muscles were reluctant to do. "They exorcists, too? Or witches."

"My parents are dead", he responded, feeling no desire to continue this conversation. "I have no siblings."

If anything could kill a conversation, it was talking about your dead parents: something Shirou trusted Dean knew, too.

The only sound in the car for the rest of the hours till Chicago was the radio playing music Shirou had never heard of.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This episode was named _Two Minutes To Midnight_ in the show, which might have made my heart flutter briefly with the sentimental winds of youth. It only seemed fitting to name the chapter with another bit of lyrics from the same band.
> 
>  **Malak** – Hebrew for angel, which means "messenger". (I am so imaginative. TvT)
> 
>  **Cwn Annwn/hellhounds** – those who read The End of the Beginning know I pretty much equate the two, although the mythology around them differs on a few points. But I am definitely taking liberties when I speak of Crowley's past and Beltane. Beltane is one of the times of the year when fae and other supernatural creatures are thought to be most active. The Cwn Annwn varity of hellhounds that Shirou summons are a Welsh legend, which is associated with the Welsh equivalent of the Wild Hunt. I doubt that Crowley, as a Scotsman, would have the same idea of what the hounds of the Wild Hunt look like: usually they're black, and the red-and-white varity seems to be an exclusively Welsh thing.
> 
>  **Bladiblah** – parallels between Supernatural and Blue Exorcist  
>  Can we take a moment to imagine that Crowley adopted Mephisto's methods of screwing people over after a humiliating first-hand demonstration? After that breaking-into-Niveus episode I just couldn't stop thinking of how similar they are. And I am talking about canon Mephisto, even though Shirou's example obviously isn't canon. The way he played Izumo to get to the Illuminati was basically the same pattern Crowley used to get Brady!  
> "You and your sister are both alive and safe, the Illuminati base is destroyed, and we obtained valuable study samples of their research: what are you so upset about? It went like clockwork!"  
> "Not for me, you son of a bitch!"
> 
> Oh, yeah: when they finally capture Brady, and Dean is beaten within an inch of his life, all Crowley has to say about it is "That's what you get, working with demons." It begged to be thrown back in his face. This is another one off my Things To Do list.
> 
> As for the reason Crowley so kindly added that clause about Bobby's legs in the deal, it's just a dumb idea that got me snickering when I rewatched the episode. (And Crowley is so cute when Bobby says thanks and he's allergic to that much emotion.)


End file.
